Workers end two-day strike at Carlos Slim's Telmex in Mexico

By Cassandra Garrison

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A strike by workers at Mexican telecommunications firm Telmex, controlled by the family of tycoon Carlos Slim, will end on Friday after the union and the company reached a deal, the union said.

By Friday afternoon, the strike that had begun at noon the day before was winding down as workers removed red and black flags from the main Telmex office in Mexico City, a union official said.

The strike, the first at the company since 1985, began after negotiations broke down over issues including outsourcing work, nearly 2,000 unfilled vacancies that were previously negotiated and changes to contractual benefits for new hires, according to the union.

Labor Minister Luisa Maria Alcalde announced the government-mediated agreement earlier on Friday, noting that company operations would return to normal as the strike ended.

As part of the agreement, a committee made up of company, union and government representatives will have 20 days to find solutions to the disputes, said a joint statement from Telmex, the union and the Labor Ministry.

"The agreement signed today not only lifts the strike, but also aims to find a substantive and lasting solution," America Movil, the parent company of Telmex, said in a statement.

The leader of the Mexican Telephone Workers Union, Francisco Hernandez Juarez, said in a video message that the union and the company would meet to coordinate the return of workers to their posts.

Union coordinator Omar Hernandez called the strike a success and praised the union's 60,000 members for fighting to defend their rights. "I am very proud of the effort," he said.

Workers voted in an overwhelming majority to approve the agreement, according to the results broadcast on YouTube.

Mexico's president, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, earlier on Friday expressed confidence that Telmex and its workers would reach a deal by Saturday.

"(Slim) has told me that (Telmex) has come out ahead of competitors because of its workers. So I think they will reach an agreement," Lopez Obrador told a regular news conference.

(Reporting by Cassandra Garrison and Aida Pelaez-Fernandez in Mexico City; Editing by David Gregorio and Matthew Lewis)

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